Richard III of England - DNA Contribution...

Sort of a funny story to illustrate my point.

My last name is Swanström because an 18th century ancestor lived on a farm named Svenserum. Swedish soldiers like him often made up surnames from the name of the farm, and that's exactly what he did. The farm name Svenserum means "Sven's area", so essentially I got my Swan- name from some unknown Swedish farmer in the middle ages named Sven who cleared a new farm and named it after himself.

I have a research buddy whose last name is Swanson. His story is even odder. Before his family came to America their name was Svanström. They changed to Swanson because they thought it would be easier for Americans. His family had the name Svanström because his 19th soldier ancestor served at a farm named Tingetorp, where one of my ancestors had just retired as soldier. The army had him take the same name as my ancestor had in order to simplify the record keeping. So, my buddy traces his surname back to the same Farmer Sven that I do.

Wanda, if you're interested in reading more about the fake Gunn descent from Sweyn Asleifson, try these links:

http://clangunn.weebly.com/why-gunns-are-not-of-norse--orkney-desce...

http://clangunn.weebly.com/on-the-non-existent-gunn-lsquochiefsrsqu...

There is much, much more along these lines but this will give you a feel for the emerging evidence.

Thank you for he links Justin :) The people in debate about Gunni are at odds about Gunn ancestry. I think some of them just don't want to admit that they might have Norse origins. This other article I was reading said Sweyn had two son's and had a main home in Caithness and another in Isle of Skye. In the Isle of Skye me marries Ingrid and settles there for the Winter. Their Grandchild Gunni Andreasarson married Ragnhild. It is through this marriage that the clan Gunn is established. However it probably came about through Ragnhild's inheritance of land's through her deceased Husband Lilhof Baldplate;
Gunni Andresarson
Name father of the Clan...1st Chief
The principal Gunn lands were acquired through
his marriage to Ragnhild (widow of Lifolf “Baldpate”).
Grandson of Sweyn.
1190...Ragnhild becomes chief of the Moddan Clan
& inherits estates in Caithness (“Katanes”) and
Sunderland (“Sundrlund”) after the death in battle in
1190 of her brother Harald Ungi, Jarl in Orkney & Earl
in Caithness.
Gunni died 1226
Source: http://www.andrew-g.com/gunnsite/gunnbook_ver2/Gunn,Baikie%20&%...
Because Sweyn had two sons, one by his Wife in Caithness and another by his Wife Ingrid in Isle of Skye it would stand to reason there are at least two lines of descent.

Sweyn Asleifsson
He was killed in 1160, during the sacking of
Dublin.
The “Ultimate Viking”...famed in the Sagas.
He had 2 castles...
 One on the island of Gairsay in the Orkneys...the outlines of
his long hall can still be discerned.
 His mainland home in Caithness...“Lambaborg” at
Freswick, at Ness Head, a few miles south of Duncansbay
Head...flanked by cliffs and difficult to conquer.
He was the most powerful man then.
He married twice…(1) Ragnhild - son Olaf; (2) Ingrid - son Andres

What happens in the 400 some years after Gunni however is not well recorded. The only thing they agree on is that Sweyn and Gunni existed. It get's murky after that and probably why there is so much debate.
While we cannot trace back to Sweyn Asleifsson it is interesting to note that the McQueens of Isle of Skye are also known as Mac Sween or "Son of Sweyn". If any of your Swan ancestor's came from that area they might be associated with this clan.

The following Scottish and Irish names are spelling variants of the Clan name MacQueen:

Mhic Suibne
MacCunn
MacSwan
MacSwen
MacSween
McSweeney
MacSwyde
Sween
Sweeney
Swan
Swyne

It is also interesting to note that their are very few McQueen or Swaney descendants living today or at least few who have joined DNA projects. We both have surnames that match that clan and we have dna that matches, although the smaller segments point to an ancient origin.

So far I have DNA surname matches for Sweyn, MacSweyn, MacSween, McSwain, Swain, McSwean, McQueen, Sweeney, McQuinnie and Swan not in the same area as previous mentioned
Nothing older than late 1500s and nothing in Ireland or Scotland.

Personally, I can't see how Sweeney and MacQueen match up. MacQueen seems to me to be more related to the equally common Irish surname Quinn.

I can't imagine why anyone should be reluctant to admit the possibilty of Norse ancestry. It stands to reason that anywhere the Norse reached, there are their descendants. Which means that there should be people with Norse (and Anglo-Saxon) ancestry in Istanbul today; one can still read Norse runic graffiti in Hagia Sofia, presumably put in by a member of the Varangian Guard during a boring sermon; and churches in Byzantium were dedicated to quite specifically Anglo-Saxon saints for the same reason.

These supposed links are all very interesting. But they do not seem to me to have much to do with genealogy. 500 years is a long period to bridge with just a theory of a name. If (for example) Quinn or MacQueen derives from a Norse name, why tie it to one man? Why not tie them to the myriads of Gunnars who appeared in the British Isles?

Mark

Mark, I have no personal opinion about the origin of the MacQueens. They themselves claim to be descended from the "MacSweens" who were part of Clan MacDonald and provided an honor guard to a MacDonald woman who married into Clan Chattan. If their origin legend is correct, then they are descended from either the MacSwans from Skye who owed allegiance to the MacDonalds but had a common ancestry with the MacLeods, or the MacSweeneys who claimed descent from Colla.

I figure it will take another generation before all these old stories about descent from Sweyn Asleifson finally wither away in the face of real evidence ;)

I understand the confusion, my Husband is Tornblom , he and his sister went to the town in Sweden where they came from, his grandfather was named Petersen, he changed it to Tornblom because there were so many Petersen's in Sweden. Makes no sense.

Justin,

I try to keep out of Celtic matters, anyway. I did briefly toy (since we are talking about 500 year jumps in time on the basis of family name evidence) what MacQueen or Quinn might be in Wales, before the difference emerged between "p-Celtic" and "q-Celtic". But the answer's irrelevant or obscene.

Anyway:

Northern Scots: a mixture betwen Picts, Celts, and Norse. Difficult.
South-Western Scots: a mixture between Irish, Britannic Celts. Difficult.
South-Eastern Scots: a mixture between Britannic Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and Norse. Difficult.

And anyway, no-one knows whether the "Celts" really existed as an ethnic group. The basic assumption is that common patterns in metal or stone show an ethnic identity, rather than the spread of fashion. It's as if some future archaelogist found a pair of Blue Harbour jeans in Peking and asumed an American ancestry. We know that the Irish, Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Breton languages are clsoely related, and not much more than that.

Mark

PS

Well, I suppose we do know more. We know trade routes from archaeological evidence and the unusual saint's names of churches, o that you get the same unusual saints with churches named after them in Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, etc. Not much use in genealogy, though.

Mark

The Greeks called all of those "Central European barbarians" "Keltoi", and assumed they were all related.

Next thing anybody knew, they were all over the place, from Iberia to Anatolia (and possibly beyond, if the Tocharians do turn out to have been related).

The Romans and various Germanic peoples (and, in Anatolia, the Turks) shoved them into the corners (an age-old dynamic of new incomers pushing out the previous residents).

Wasn't it barbaros they called them, meaning everyone that do not speak greek?

Se http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/videnskab_og_teknik/richard-iiis-kra...

Or jump to the video direct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6S0ku1R9nE

Ulf: well, they did distinguish between different types of "barbaroi", even if they didn't think much of any of them.

I had to wonder about the difference between Clan Gunn and the Sweyn's/McQueen's etc. of Skye. The reason I wondered is I do not have dna surname matches to Gunn. (yet, if at all), only to the McQueens, etc. This person says't that the clan Gunn of Caithness are Henderson Gunn's which I do have Henderson Ancestor's and DNA. He also say's that Wilson descendants are Gunn's So is Gunn actually Henderson or just one of many? I would think if Sweyn had two wives, one in caithness and one if Isle of Skye that the DNA would be same but it appears they are different. My Question is clan Gunn more in reference to the Gunn lands and the DNA more in reference to Henderson or Wilson or something?

http://www.aspects.net/~janus/gunn.htm

It's like Swanson. There are Wilsons who are descended from a prominent William Gunn, and Hendersons who are descended from a prominent Henry Gunn. So, you could say Wilson and Henderson are "Clan Gunn names" but most Wilsons are descended from other Williams and most Hendersons are descended from other Henrys.

Sweyn had two wives, and one son by each, Olaf by Ragnhild, Andres by Ingirid on the Isle of Man (Orkneyinga Saga 92). All of Gunns, and their Wilson and Henderson descendants, claimed that their ancestor was a son of Andres named Gunni. Please remember, though, that this genealogy is certainly false. Until Victorian times that same Gunni was said to be a son of Olaf the Black, king of Man. First historians decided Gunni was probably a son of Andres Sweynson, then historians decided that the Gunns are descended from a different Gunni.

Justin, I'm catching up on this Discussion and want to take you back to 2/10 regarding DNA of Kings of France and Spain. Their happlo group is R1b1a2 and mine is the same. The following is a listing of the Kings of France and Spain dys and allele and my dys and allele. How many markers have to be identical to the listing of the Kings?

Bourbon DNA
DYS Kings of France John Pat
and Spain Allele Allele
393 13 13
390 23 24
19 14 14
391 10 11
385a 11 11
385b 14 15
426 12 12
388 12 12
439 12 13
389-1 13/14 13
392 13 13
389-2 29-30 29
458 18 17
459 9,10 9,10
455 11 11
454 11 11
447 25 25
437 15 15
448 19 20
449 28/29 28
464 15,15,16,16 14,15,17,17
460 12 11
GATA H4 12 11
YC ALL 19,23 19,23
456 17 16
607 19 15
576 16 18
570 16/17 19
724/CDY 35,38/39/40 36-37
442 18 12
438 12 12
635 23 23

John Pat, you are very distant from the Bourbons. Your tree diverges somewhere around the Bronze Age.

You are R1b1a2a1a1b4. The Bourbons are R1b1b2a1a1b. At bottom, that means you belong to the L21 clade (North Atlantic). The Bourbons belong to the U106 clade (Proto-Germanic).

You can see the tree here. Start with the one at the top of the page, then go deeper only if you want to explore further.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml

The alleles you are showing are STRs. These are deceptive because of a process called convergence. The SNPs (L21, U106) are what define the different groups.

You can see info about your group here:
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/clancolla-42-5null/about/backg...

And info about the Bourbon group here:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/10/house-of-bourbon-belonged-to-y...

(Maven: the Bourbon page has a tree that illustrates how they triangulated the Bourbon results.)

While looking for the info above I found some things at Eupedia I hadn't seen before.

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml#famous_people

This is the first time I've seen anyone claim a particular haplogroup for the Wettins (royal Saxe-Coburg-Gothas). They are supposed to be DF98, a branch of U106. I'm just a little skeptical because the evidence seems to depend on the research of a man who believes his ancestor was an illegitimate son of George V.

More here:
http://the-kings-son.com/royal_haplogroup
http://www.amazon.com/KINGS-SON-Evidence-2nd-ebook/dp/B007UHBOP6/re...

And I see that Eupedia is accepting the claim of Harry Hoppes that he has identified the Habsburgs as L2, a branch of U152. I don't think so. Harry Hoppes' methodology starts with the premise that his first Hoppes ancestor was an illegitimate Habsburg and that Hoppes is in fact a contraction of Habsburg. He's done some triangulation, but he ignores the male line break in the later Habsburgs at Maria Theresa, and he traces the earliest Habsburgs and Lorraines through a line that isn't accepted by any other historian.

Some of this Eupedia stuff sounds rather like a certain persistent Geni user, doesn't it? ;-)

I'd be slightly more inclined to believe it if he were claiming Edward VII - who was a notorious playboy in his youth, and didn't entirely give up his rakish ways as King.

As for the pre-Bourbon kings, that requires further investigation - the line may indeed be valid, but 9th cousin is a long way out with a lot of chances for something to go amiss.

I also notice - getting back to RIII, finally - that Eupedia is buying the Beaufort/Somerset claim that their line is the true one and there was something amiss with Richard's. Sorry, guys, but with one known cuckoo in your nest, you don't get that much benefit of the doubt.

Thank you for explaining Justin :)
Maven, what about Ebsen? Isn't his line valid?

I seem to recall someone making a similar claim for film director John Farrow - don't remember if he made it himself or if a family member (Mia?) made it on his behalf. Anyway, that one was pretty definitely bogus.

There was a nineteenth-century South African called George Rex who was widely rumoured, because of his surname, to be a child of George IV. It seems to me that renaming the kings Rex would produce a quite distinguished, and often accurate while preposterous, family tree. The difficulty would be identifying the people with the surnames Princeps and Regina who made such a habit of cuckolding them once their legitimate sons had been born. A good starting-point might be Gavrilo Prinzip, the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was no doubt motivated from fury that his family's traditional rights of cuckoldry of royalty had been usurped by someone called Archdux.

Mark

Lots of good reading here (but I didn't have the inclination to read it all). I am left thinking this. >>

When confronted with the observation by the geni-system: "Edward III of England is your 17th great grandfather." I take it under advisement. One of those ladies in waiting isn't talking.

And anyway, in each of our 17th gg-generatons there are 262,144 male profile slots to fill. Thinking about this reduces the significance of one-ten-even a hundred of these slots.

Let's say (even exaggerating) that I am related to Edward III along 10 lines of males... this leaves well over TWO HUNDRED SIXTY-TWO THOUSAND other males... not to speak of the female lines...

and, as I already said, it's the ladies who usually know which gentleman is the real papa... What is one in a thousand wasn't being forthright? We'd still have a lot of editing to do to correct the best curated master tree out there.

What was the title of the Shakespeare play? Much Ado About Nothing...

The percentage of 1/524,288 is somewhere in the neighborhood 0.0001% no matter how many time we smear our saliva on a swab... and this only takes each of us back to the 14th century.

By the way... anyone want to take the time to remove all the yellow triangles with the exclamation marks in them that now surround these Edward profiles?...

I must confess, I do not like counting, but ...
you,
your dad
your grandfathers on both your dad and mums side,
that's 3 males, but easier explained

1 You
2 your mother and father
4 their mothers fathers
8 etc
16
32
64
128
256
512
1024 = 10 generations
2048
4096
8192
16384
32768
65536
131072 = 17 generation,
half of them are females, leaving

65536 men, but due to pedigree collapses they are often fewer
than that, not more. It is still a big amount of them though.

Ulf: The 17 generations back is not the 17th great status. This is because your "8 etc." is the 1st GGrand... capiche?
Count using "8 ect." as #1....

Given enough generations, it's quite possible to have a legitimate line. Royal daughter marries a member of the upper nobility, their daughter marries one of the lesser nobility, a younger son or daughter marries into the upper (untitled) gentry, and so on downward by steps until you're down among the yeomanry and you may not even know the family heritage.

In fact, that's precisely the path followed by the female-to-female line from Richard III's sister. Each daughter moved one step farther down the social ladder until they were in among the common folk.

Michael van Beuren,

I do not see that genealogy (at the moment, anyway) can possibly judge about genes on a large scale. It may be able to do so, eventually, and although the number of illegitimacies may differ from place to place and from time to time, it may not be insignificant in terms of medical application. (Although, on the whole, in the unlikely event of my being pulled off a cliff by three greyhounds, I would be unlikely to consider that this was genetically determined by the mode of death of a fourteenth-century "ancestor"). Muslim burial ceremonies, if not necessarily Muslim life-styles, are "feminist" on the grounds that the dead person is addressed as "son" or "daughter" of the mother, not the father, on the grounds that the father cannot be certain.

I regard it as social history. People were brought up together, regarding themselves as brothers and sisters even if their mother had had a fling. Until the twentieth century at least, for people with property, marriages tended to be with people with social, political, religious, and family links. If you can provide a biography which goes beyond mere births, deaths, and marriages ("hatches, matches, and despatches") you can often see in the same family one or two dominant temperaments which repeat themselves, and at least suggest a genetic origin.

Mark

First a short answer to Michael van Beuren, yes, generation are counted in that way I described, but you have also right, the grandfather + x th counts as you say. Just a misunderstanding from my side of what it concerned.

Second, Mark Lowes , marriages have and still are one economic agreement, without the trust to each other marriages do not work. Sometimes I get the feeling that people are describing animal in breeding season, not humans. It is not that common generally that people are unfaithful, the rate globally there the expected or named father of a child is not the one, concerns some few percent depending also much where in the world, but 1-2% lies near the truth.

When dealing with statistics, you must get clear about the fact that most fathers doing a paternity suit usually has reason to it so the numbers thus becomes remarkably high among those who are not fathers in that particular surveys, roughly one in four in the worst countries, but it is not representative. There is also the biological fact that men do have some killer sperms, the one who are in a regular relationship will likely kill of any remains of another mans leftover, the chance are thereby natural limited if it just happens occasionally that the woman are unfaithful.

Then the next thing, if we look back there was a high social stigma connected with women that were promiscuous and even further back it could cost them their life. The methods for abortions was also risky, a conclusion would be that if a woman got pregnant with another man,
it would commonly be by someone other close in the family, uncle, cousin, or as a result of a rape, in the first cases, the genetic lineage would in many cases be the same as if her husband was the father, if the relative where on his side, certainly worth to take into account for if example the husband was noted to be away during the time of conception, but nowadays test shows no discrepancies. But still, a bastard has certainly almost through the whole christian history right until our days suffered both scorn and derision.